CHAPTER IX.

THE SUNKEN WRECK.

Across the pack ice the adventurers traveled, and soon had reached the Explorer.

As they climbed on deck Barney appeared.

“Shure it’s glad I am to see yez back!” cried the Celt. “Pwhat was goin’ on over there?”

“Golly! We jes’ had a big fight out dar,” replied Pomp.

“Yes, and we have gained one of the objects of our expedition,” said Frank.

He introduced Barney to Roger.

Then the young Arctic castaway was shown about the ship, much to his wonderment and interest.

“Upon my word!” he cried, “this surpasses any effort of the imagination. Do you mean to say that this boat can travel under water?”

“That is just what I mean,” replied Frank. “And we shall very soon take a trip thither.”

“Indeed!”

“You will see that the pack ice bars our progress.”

“So it does!”

“Now it is not easy to go through it, so we shall make the best of it and go under it.”

Roger scratched his head and looked a bit incredulous.

But Frank said to Barney:

“Open the air-chamber.”

The Celt touched a lever and the boat went down beneath the water.

Roger saw daylight disappear and heard the hissing and surging of the water.

“We are sinking!” he cried, with alarm, forgetting for a moment Frank’s promise.

“Of course we are!” cried the young inventor. “Didn’t I tell you we would?”

But the spell of gloom was only of brief duration.

The electric lights in the Explorer’s cabin shone forth and illumined everything.

Suddenly there was a slight jar.

The Explorer had rested upon the bed of the ocean.

Pomp went to the search-light and turned its rays in all directions.

The bed of the ocean was shown quite plainly through the bull’s-eye windows.

Roger Harmon was dazed.

He kept rubbing his eyes.

“I am certainly dreaming!” he cried. “We are not under the Arctic?”

“Yes, we are,” said Frank.

“But we will soon stifle here without air!”

Frank laughed.

“Didn’t I explain to you how the air is manufactured?” he cried. “There are chemicals enough aboard to keep us in pure oxygen for a year.”

“Wonderful!” exclaimed Harmon, which was the most he could say.

Frank went to the search-light and sent its rays through the water.

He saw that no ice was in the way nor any obstruction of material sort.

The Explorer was sent ahead at quite a rapid pace.

It was certainly a remarkable sensation to travel through the water in this manner.

Roger Harmon was in the pilot-house with Frank.

Many and wonderful were the sights which were revealed to the gaze of the explorers.

The ocean caves and their myriads of inhabitants, with the variety of sea monsters, cetaceans, crabs and octopus, all formed a wonderful study.

The Explorer kept on for hours in this way.

Now the bed of the sea descended into deep valleys, or again rose into high eminences or ranges of under sea hills.

It was necessary to keep the search-light constantly at work.

Frank Reade, Jr., stayed by the wheel, all the while dodging obstructions, now lifting the boat, now lowering it in conformity with the undulating bed of the sea.

After awhile speed was reduced and Barney relieved Frank.

The young explorer, somewhat fatigued, went into the cabin and sat down.

Roger Harmon joined him.

They could look through the bull’s-eye windows upon either side and watch the mighty panorama.

This was most interesting to Harmon especially.

“I don’t understand how you can make a course!” he said.

“Easy enough!” replied Frank. “I simply go by the chart as given of the sea’s surface.”

“Ah! but has any accurate chart been yet made of these waters?”

“I shall go by the chart of former explorers as far as I can.”

“And what then?”

“I shall then feel my way.”

“But will you not fear getting lost?”

“I know of no reason why I should,” replied Frank.

“I have heard that there are certain localities here where the needle of the compass becomes demagnetized.”

“I am going to scour the Arctic Ocean and reach the Pole,” cried Frank, earnestly, “if I have to proceed as Jason did when he invaded the Labyrinth--mark my course with a thread.”

“Well, I hope you will succeed,” said Roger, earnestly.

“I do not fear but that I shall,” said Frank, confidently. “I base my hopes, however, upon what I consider the almost absolute certainty of the existence of an open sea around the pole.”

They were thus conversing when Roger chanced to glance out into the ocean.

He beheld a sight which brought the blood to his head in surges.

“My God!” he cried. “We are going to be annihilated!”

This brought Frank to his feet almost instantly.

But when he saw the cause of Roger’s alarm, he cooled down.

He saw that a monster whale, with mouth agape, was rushing with whirlwind velocity toward the boat.

Of course there would be a shock when the collision should come, but Frank knew that the whale would be the greatest sufferer.

The next moment it came.

The whale’s blunt head struck the Explorer’s hull.

Frank shouted to Barney.

“Charge the hull!”

Quick as a flash Barney turned a small lever.

This sent a current from the dynamos into the hull of the boat.

Once more the whale came to the attack. But this time when he struck the hull, it was likely that he very speedily wished that he had not.

The shock was something awful, and a most demoralized looking whale turned upon his back and went shooting up through the water.

“Heavens!” cried Roger. “I thought we were done for that time.”

But Frank only laughed.

“Oh, no,” he said. “That whale was a bit funny, but he won’t trouble the Explorer again.”

“The electricity must have stunned him.”

“Oh, yes.”

“And he has gone to the surface.”

“Or to the ice floor above.”

“But how is it that we did not feel the shock?”

“Because the cabin we are in has its supports perfectly insulated. It is independent of the steel hull, and only connected with it by rubber cushions.”

“Whew!” exclaimed young Harmon. “Who’d ever have thought of that? Certainly you are the most wonderful inventor yet, Mr. Reade.”

Roger went to the window and looked out.

“But I don’t see how you can tell how deep we are,” he said.

“That is easy,” said Frank.

“Well, how?”

The famous young inventor turned to a dial upon the wall.

“Do you see that hand upon the dial?” he said. “Well, that is connected simply with an electrical disc upon the top of the hull. The greater the depth the more pressure, and the dial records the number of fathoms.”

Roger gazed at the instrument.

“Well, I never!” he exclaimed; then reading from the face of the dial. “We are now nineteen fathoms deep.”

“Yes.”

“But that is not very deep.”

“No, but the Arctic is not considered a deep sea, anyway.”

“True. How deep can you go with this boat, Mr. Reade?”

“About one hundred and fifty fathoms. The pressure then becomes too great!”

“Mercy on us! I should think it would be crushed like an eggshell.”

“To the contrary, I cannot drive it deeper. The density of the water is too great, and the boat too buoyant.”

“Then if there were seven miles of water beneath, we would not know it.”

“You would not know the exact depth, but you would become assured that you were far from the bed of the ocean.”

“All this is very wonderful. But nineteen fathoms is quite enough for me.”

At this moment a cry came from Barney in the engine room.

“Och, Misther Frank, wud yez be afther comin’ up here?”

Frank sprang up into the place.

Barney turned the electric light so that it fell upon a wreck lying upon the bed of the ocean.

It was the dismantled hull of a large ship.

Frank saw it and instantly turned the lever, which checked the progress of the boat.

He believed that it was worth while to investigate the wreck.

It undoubtedly would tell the story of some Arctic exploration which might be of service, and at least interesting to the voyagers.

Roger Harmon was at once interested when he saw what had occasioned the stop.

The Explorer was brought to a halt.

Drawing as near to the wreck as it was safe, the search-light was turned upon the old hulk.

It could be very readily seen that the vessel had been lost by being nipped in the ice.

Her sides were crushed in and parts of the cargo were lying about.

The wreck was deeply covered with silt and sea-weeds and evidently had been in the water many years.

“What sort of a craft would you call it, Mr. Reade?” asked Roger.

“I hardly know,” replied Frank. “I imagine, however, that she is a lost whaler.”

“I don’t agree with you,” said Roger. “Her shape, as near as I can see, is more that of a revenue cutter or government yacht.”

“We will soon find out,” declared Frank.

“How?”

“By going aboard.”

“Going aboard?” exclaimed Roger, in amazement.

“That is what I said!”

“I heard, but you forget that we are under water.”

“I forget nothing of the kind!” replied Frank. “I am going aboard that ship, and you may go, too, if you would like.”